


A Rude Awakening

by Senchai



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 16:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14773412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senchai/pseuds/Senchai
Summary: She wakes up in pain, but that's not her period tracker's fault.





	A Rude Awakening

At first, she thought her t-shirt had rucked up and the folded cloth was digging into her back, trapped between her body and the bed. She turned over onto her front, pounded the thin pillow in a vain attempt to fluff it up, and tried to settle in for just a bit more sleep.

 

It was her first day off in a fortnight, and nothing was going to come between her and the 10 hours of blissful unconsciousness she’d been looking forward to. Just another hour would do.

 

A sudden dull pain began between her shoulder blades, slowly spreading across her upper back like throbbing heat. Removing her arms from the loose hold they had on her pillow, she brought them down to her sides, and then back up. It was a futile attempt to dislodge whatever was causing the pain. Unfortunately, it only served to intensify and spread the pain further, down her spine to her coccyx.

 

Now fully awake, and in an exceedingly bad mood at this rude awakening, she foggily tried to remember whether her period had started and the usual cramps had decided to branch out this time.

 

Extending her right arm out to the bedside table, she scrabbled for her phone, thumbed open the screen, and mashed the icon for the app she used to track her cycle. Nope, just ovulating, apparently. That didn’t usually involve cramps. Come to think of it, her regular cramps weren’t nearly as bad as what was happening on her back now.

 

Sitting up slowly, hissing at the sharp, stabbing jolts that ran up and down her back, she took a moment to really wake up, and then started thinking. And worrying. With her feet on the floor, she sat on the edge of her bed and tried to take proper stock of the situation.

 

Gingerly lifting her arm up and back, she winced as soon as her fingers made contact. Pressing her loose and baggy t-shirt against her skin had felt like what she imagined getting branded would feel like.

 

Getting the t-shirt off took three attempts, each more painful than the last. By now, she was sweating profusely, her eyes screwed shut and gritting her teeth against the burning sensation on her back.

 

She couldn’t think, couldn’t try to figure out what on earth was happening. Her world was pain, and its centre was right between her shoulder blades and along her spine.

 

Inhaling deeply through flared nostrils, she then held her breath and stood up. Regardless of how much it hurt, her hand shot out to cling unsteadily to the side of the wardrobe, her head now swimming.

 

A few steps taken uneasily away from the bed, she stood in front of the full-length mirror that comprised one of the wardrobe doors.

 

Frankly, she looked like hell. Not the well-rested, bright-eyed and chipper archivist she had hoped to be today. The flooding in the university buildings and subsequent damage had made her ordinarily easy-going and slow-paced job a frantic and filthy two weeks of trying to salvage as much as possible, while also not ending up under several years’ worth of files and specimens as the shelves teetered dangerously in the chaos.

 

She had been so worn out when she dragged herself home last night that she hadn’t even noticed the stripe of sludge across her forehead or the way her hair seemed to have attracted something highly suspicious over on the left side.

 

But all of that paled in comparison to the enormous hump that had somehow appeared across her upper back. It was so large she could even see it despite her slackened pose, her panting breath fogging up the blessedly cool mirror she leaned against.

 

Mustering all her courage, and moving as slowly as she dared, she turned herself around to try and see what was happening to her back. The pain was making her feel nauseated, and the worry she had been feeling now bloomed darkly into full-fledged terror.

 

No amount of poring over the university’s ancient and old medical texts, seeing ghoulish specimens in jars and cases, or even the occasional horror flick she watched for fun on Halloween could have prepared her for what the mirror showed her.

 

The skin had now split under the massive bulge like the rind on a dropped watermelon. But instead of revealing a slick, red interior, the splits and slits were sprouting small, wet feathers. They were dark, blues, blacks and purples on the iridescent surfaces, and as she watched in horror, they bristled and moved.

 

Fighting both the urge to be violently sick and to look away, she forced herself to keep her head turned towards the mirror, and to see what was unfurling from her body. The feathers were now protruding quite clearly from her back, creaking and squeaking as they emerged.

 

Overcome by pain and panic, she turned her face away from what was happening on her back and slowly bent forwards, crouching towards the floor, and collapsed to her knees. She had never been able to master the child's pose in the handful of yoga classes she’d been dragged to by her sister. But as she lay huddled on her floor, she was struck by a nonsensical flash of triumph as her body folded itself into what was essentially an upright foetal position.

 

Her mind went otherwise blank, no coherent thoughts other than the endless loop of “What. The. Fuck.” that had been playing incessantly since she had felt that first dull stab of pain.

 

With her thoughts unable to gather together any meaningful information, it took a while before she realised that the pain was starting to recede, and that someone had apparently put a blanket over her. This was of no comfort at all, since she lived alone, and couldn’t remember having done it herself.

 

Opening one eye, and then the other, she took in her surroundings. She was still on the floor, still hugging her knees (which made their discomfort known, now), and still had feathers.

 

Only now, she could see them in her peripheral vision. Wings, then, she supposed. She closed her eyes again. They were still there a few seconds later.

 

Wary of her legs maybe having fallen asleep, she slowly pushed off the floor with her arms, and began to stand up. The sudden weight on her back made her lurch dangerously to one side, and then the other, but she was able to get herself righted without any effort at all, it seemed.

 

Pausing to mutter, “Here goes nothing”, she turned and once more looked at herself in the mirror.

 

“What. The. Fuck.” began its familiar refrain as she took in the incredible sight. There were definitely wings. There were definitely wings that had sprouted out of her back. There were definitely wings that were now large, shiny, and twitching slightly.

 

She cautiously raised her arms to her sides, watching as the wings followed the movement. As she lowered her arms, the wings also began to fall. She did it again, and again, increasing the speed. Nothing hurt, and nothing felt that odd, either. Which was odd.

 

She continued to, well, flap her arms and wings, while she turned in a circle, looking at herself from all sides. The wings were actually pretty cool. She couldn’t extend them to their full wingspan where she was, but she spread them as far as she could, moving this way and that, up and down, in and out, whipping and pushing the air about her.

 

In her room, posters and papers started to lift and settle again. Prints of ornithological charts depicting local and exotic species threatened to flutter down from the walls. The skeleton specimens she’d spent months meticulously assembling bobbed on their strings hanging from the ceiling, joining her in a macabre dance. The colourful mobile her nephews had made for her swayed back and forth, the feathers catching on each other. Her favourite earrings, the ones with the swallows on them, tinkled as they collided with the other jewellery on her dressing table. She would have a hell of a time untangling the hummingbird necklace from the rest of it. It was a delicate piece, and from her late grandmother.

 

It had only been a month since her grandmother’s funeral, and the sudden thought of her brought the wings and her arms down in a sudden gust of air. She stepped over to her overflowing desk and rummaged around, finally unearthing an envelope and card from its murky depths. Her grandmother had sent it to her for her birthday, a year ago.

 

As she drew the card out, she admired the beautiful illustration of a Sturnus Vulgaris, or European Starling, her favourite bird amongst the many she adored. Her grandmother had known her so well. Opening the card, in her dear grandmother’s shaky, but clear cursive, she read:

 

“Dear Birdie,

To thine own self be true.

Love always,

Nana.”

 

Birdie’s hand came up to her neck, where the pendant that had accompanied the card hung on a thin silver chain. She took it off and brought the ordinarily slightly tarnished pendant nearer to her face, and inspected it closely.

 

It gleamed in the morning light, with no sign of the dull black and grey that had been there before. The engraved starling that had been surrounded by vines was now replaced with the face of a young woman, and was flanked by two large wings.

 

Birdie squinted at the woman, and the woman winked back.


End file.
